


We're Not Done Yet

by JazzKat1213



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Adora is self-destructive, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Injury, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Human Catra (She-Ra), Hurt/Comfort, If Corridors Heart p.2 Save the Cat and Failsafe had an apocalypse baby, Like Lots, Love Confessions, Reunions, Temporary Character Death, Zombie-Typical Violence/Gore, Zombies, and therapy, don't worry they're okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzKat1213/pseuds/JazzKat1213
Summary: It really is only a matter of time. The swarm outside hasn’t started banging on the doors and walls yet, and it’s the last thing giving her any sort of comfort.There’s a whole horde of infected outside getting closer and closer - one too-loud sound and it’ll give away their position. Not that it’ll matter so much; the noise already feels suffocating. What with four racing heartbeats in a rickety shack and Glimmer panting in poorly disguised pain on the floor. Even the stench of blood as it runs from the three gashes on Adora’s face is probably drawing the infected like a beacon. 

Or where Catra gets infected and Adora goes on a rampage trying to save her.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 83





	We're Not Done Yet

**Author's Note:**

> I had inspiration for the first time in a while and made this oops. Beta'd by: toffii  
> I literally cannot not psychoanalyze characters, I was going to keep this short I swear. It's not my fault Adora has a self-sacrificing saviour complex that's really fun (and painful) to look in to. Also may have based some of the healing process on a Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals fanfic.  
> TW: 'death', blood, injuries, panic attack (but like in very little detail)

It really is only a matter of time. The swarm outside hasn’t started banging on the doors and walls yet, and it’s the last thing giving her any sort of comfort.

There’s a whole horde of infected outside getting closer and closer - one too-loud sound and it’ll give away their position. Not that it’ll matter so much; the noise already feels suffocating. What with four racing heartbeats in a rickety shack and Glimmer panting in poorly disguised pain on the floor. Even the stench of blood as it runs from the three gashes on Adora’s face is probably drawing the infected like a beacon. The doors and windows won’t hold long after they’re found, a few minutes maybe if they're lucky with the way rust has collected on the hinges, and rot on the plank they'd strapped across the door. 

Adora has no fucking clue what they’re going to do; they need to reset Glimmer’s knee to have any hope of escaping, but they can’t risk _anything_ else drawing the horde closer. She looks over to where Catra stands frozen in the corner and she can see the guilt written across her face. Parts of her hair are plastered to the side of her head with drying mud, flattening her messy curls, it makes her seem so much smaller, that and the way she’s got her arms curled round herself. It’s scary how still she can become, how easily she can blend into the shadows when she wants to.

It wasn’t necessarily Catra's fault she’d crashed the car - it was low on fuel and old as shit, it was a miracle it still drove at all - but Glimmer’s leg had gone in the accident and Adora now had the cuts on her jaw that would surely scar, and (uncharacteristically, she might add) Catra is blaming herself for everything. For the injuries and for making them have to sneak their way through a mob of infected to get to this not-so-safehouse. It's the apocalypse; people change. 

But all that really means right now is that Adora wants to comfort her - no argument over blame to shield her from the love and worry swirling in her chest like a storm. She wants to so, _so_ badly bring Catra into her arms and stroke her hair, mud be damned, in the way she knows always eases her breathing. (They've spent enough rough nights together in the orphanage, and even in the Rebellion bunks, for her to know that fact inside-out.) But they’re not alone right now and Catra would never allow it. She just needs to hold onto that want for when they’re alone. 

And so they wait, fear-induced adrenaline keeping everyone tense, muscles becoming stiff with it. Their breaths mist in front of their faces and the shivering must be making the pain in Glimmer’s leg ache and spike. Bow wraps her in his arms, cradling her in a feeble attempt to keep her warm. Adora doesn’t want to let her suffer, but she doesn’t know anyway to do this safely. Even if Glimmer bites down on something, the sound will still be too loud. And even if it isn't, the iron of Adora's blood is getting heavier in the air, persistently reminding her that she's not helping in _any_ way right now. (She can't wipe it away, her hands, sleeves, everything is filthy, it'll just get infected.) 

And what if she sets it wrong? It’s been a while since she last had to reset anything but shoulders. She might be a better trained healer than any one of her friends but that doesn’t mean she’s confident she can do it. Still, it really is their only option. They just have to wait for a better time and then she’ll get it done and they’ll be on their way. If she doesn’t fuck it up and cost the Rebellion four lives. At least waiting will give her some time to prepare and remember the best way to do it.

There’s a shuffling and series of hushed groans getting louder outside the window, though no shapes pass by the blackened glass. The four of them still even more, breaths stuttering in their throats. Adora wills her pulse to slow but the anxiety keeps it roaring in her ears; the infected may have bad sight, and sometimes stillness means living another day, but this is not one of those situations. As soon as the stench from the slowing flow of blood on her jaw finds it's way out of the shack and into the night-time air, they’ll find them. She hates knowing that if she’d just been a little bit more careful, if they’d chosen a different car maybe, that they might be back in Brightmoon already. Adrenaline and her own rationality dictates that she’ll agonise over it when they’re safe. Right now all that matters is survival.

It goes quiet, a little too quiet, and Glimmer meets her eyes. Catra shifts off the wall to look through cracked smokey glass but jerks down immediately. She shakes her head and points at Glimmer’s leg. She knows she has to do it, there’s just too many risky factors to try and work through and they’re running out of time too quickly. The first bang on the wall makes everyone flinch, panic rocketing again. It growls, low like a rabid animal, though it's far worse than one. But there's no wailing; it hasn't caught the scent of blood yet.

Catra's fidgeting from her position beneath the glass, and Adora knows if there was any noise at all to mask the sound of her guns, that creature would be dead by now.  
“It might just be the one,” Bow whispers, far too hopeful.  
She sees Catra grimace as another pulse pushes against aged wood. One they can deal with, they’re not going to draw anymore closer with unnecessary sound if they can just wait it out. She almost doesn’t hear Catra dejectedly mutter, “Hope you’re right,” into the wall. 

But Bow was too optimistic, and there’s no room for optimism in the middle of an apocalypse. The too-quiet of the last few minutes fades, collecting into a wave of dragging steps and soft inhuman howls, and Catra meets her eyes worriedly every time she sees another approaching. They should’ve killed the first one when they had the opportunity; now it’s attracted the rest. But there’s still a chance at more time, the infected haven’t been activated yet; but any loud sound and they’ll start tearing down the walls. Any hope the knowledge gives her dissipates at the first screeching creak at the door. The invigorated groans of the infected ricochet around the shack they’re in, spiralling down into the tunnel entrance on the other side of the room.  
“Fuck,” Catra growls as she loads up both her pistols. 

Adora doesn’t know what she’s waiting for anymore - the activation’s happened and that door will be coming down far too soon. She crouches down by Glimmer’s leg and moves it into position. Glimmer doesn’t shout, so it gives her some hope that she won’t be too loud. Not that it’ll help all that much right now.

“Adora?” Glimmer asks expectedly when she doesn’t do anything. The first proper bang on the door makes the whole hut shudder. The noise accumulating outside means that any sounds Glimmer does make will be swallowed. She still gives her a backpack strap to bite down on, anxiety too high to not offer. She takes it, steeling herself for the pain.  
“Look over there,” Bow says urgently as he points towards the hazy stairway leading down into the tunnels. Glimmer falls for it and Adora sets her knee quickly. There’s a sick crunch-pop sound but as Glimmer’s shout is lost to the roar of the horde outside, she’s almost grateful of it.

The crashing against the door has only increased in frequency and the hinges squeak ominously. Catra half-runs over to where they sit on the floor, her jacket’s almost hanging off her arms but she doesn’t seem to notice. There’s definite fear in her eyes that she doesn’t let show in the rest of her movements, but Adora knows how to read her. They need to leave. Now.  
“You good to go Sparkles?”

Glimmer spits out the backpack strap and slings the bag full of new supplies back onto her shoulder. She nods, though they all know that she’s not going to be walking on that leg easy for weeks. There’s a terrifying crunch as a plank of wood is torn from the door and thrown across the room they’re in, coughing up a plume of dust as it goes. There’s a chasm in the door now and bloodied arms worm their way through like tentacles. 

“We need to go now!” Bow calls over the roar. As if he really had to say anything.  
There’s a palpable dread on everyone’s faces as they lift Glimmer off the ground, Catra’s more than anyone, and it makes Adora’s heart twist in her chest. Catra's not afraid of anything.

Bow takes most of Glimmer’s weight around his shoulders and they hurry towards the tunnel-mouth. Adora follows behind quickly as growls rise to screams; they’ve caught the blood scent then. Glass cracks, there’s another crunch: another plank gone. She spins round to check the damage only to see Catra doing the same. Catra’s got her eyes glued to the door - what's left of it - and she's not nearly as close behind as Adora had thought. She’s barely a few feet from the infectious black nails and the snarling teeth of the horde outside.

“Catra come on!”  
Catra doesn’t move, she stares, shoulders sinking with a realisation Adora can’t read. Glass explodes on the side wall where a mangled fist has smashed against it. Catra shoots both her pistols quick as whips towards it, and something falls dead on the outside. She should be running back, they should be getting as far into the tunnels as possible, there’s no door to close and prevent the wave, _they need to go now_.

“Catra, what the fuck are you doing?”  
She starts forward with the intention of grabbing her and forcefully dragging her into the earth but Catra steps towards the door. Bow’s arm flies across her chest like an iron bar, and Glimmer’s hands form vices on her arms, they’re the only things keeping her in place. She struggles against them, not understanding why they don’t just let her go. They’ll be fine - a crater splinters in the far wall - they can all make it and be safe if they just get out of here right the fuck now. 

Her world narrows down to Catra too far away from her, hears her soft words like explosions, “Without a barrier we’ll never make it. I’m giving you a head start.” Catra turns back and Adora can see the tears welling in her eyes as they half-glow in the dark. She looks so scared, she can’t remember the last time she looked like that: hopeless, “I’ll catch up okay?”

It’s a lie she realises, a cruel and precise cut to her heart. Her blood turns to lead with rage and fear. She hates that Catra’s right, they won’t make it, it took her too long to realise and now - and now what? Catra’s just going to give up? Grief she doesn’t deserve to feel yet fills up her throat like a flood.  
She still manages to scream, “They’ll fucking kill you! Catra please, you’re not fucking done, not yet!”

There’s too much resignation on Catra’s face, she’s never seen Catra resigned to anything before. For a moment she thinks Catra is going to run to her, her hands twitch around her weapons and it makes her heart pound against her ribs. But all that happens is that she takes off her bag, drops one of her guns inside and throws it across the room, where it lands by Adora’s boots. Glimmer picks it up and in a sudden and desperate jerk, Adora throws her body forward, reaching for the black jacket Catra’s worn every opportunity possible since her nineteenth birthday; since before this shitshow of an apocalypse started. Catra jumps out the way, and Adora’s other friends drag her further into the tunnel, she loses the grip she never lands.

 _‘This can’t be how it ends.’_  
It might be the end of the fucking world but it’s not the end of Adora’s. Catra was always going to go down fighting, they all knew that, she at least thought it would be with no other options. But there are no other options, she just can’t seem to make herself believe that.  
_‘You just hoped you wouldn’t have to watch.’_

Catra walks back, head bowed. There’s tears running rivers down her face and somehow she’s the most beautiful thing Adora’s ever seen.  
“Adora, I love you, with everything I have, but we both know there’s no way all of us are making it out of here, not now.”  
It quietens her screams. Of all times right now? Of all times for Adora to finally hear the words she’s wanted to hear for as long as she can remember and it’s at the end. She goes limp in her friends arms, disbelief and mind-numbing fear promising to let her fall to the ground. She needs to get to her before it’s too late but she can’t move. “You love me?”  
“You’re such an idiot.” Catra laughs, a broken tear-filled thing. She walks back those last few feet, holding the shaking door in its place as enemy hands tear into her sides, “Bad timing I know but yeah, I always have. Now go!”

Her blood sprays across the ground, dyes the red fabric redder and Adora almost throws up. She can’t stay to watch the infection take her, she just can’t. Honestly, what did she expect? This is the fucking apocalypse, no one gets to have anything good, not anymore. Yet somewhere deep down, she hoped she was the exception, that maybe she could have that one good thing in the world’s hellscape. Guess she was wrong. There’s a litany of “No, no, no,” falling from her lips but it’s lost to the yowling of the swarm outside. 

Catra forces herself back against the deadening door, struggling against the bodies piling into it. She’s holding it up and Adora knows that it would’ve collapsed already without her. She should be running into the tunnels as fast and far as possible but she can’t tear her eyes away from Catra’s. Those fucking eyes that make her forget her damn name. There’s tears streaming down her muddied cheeks and Adora realises she’s crying out for her once again, her throat is burning with it. Every sensation seems dimmed as her sight focuses in on the black nails clawing at Catra’s face round the other window as it’s shattered. The first of the infected falls through the window, body a roiling mass of rotting organs and not much else. Catra shoots it dead quickly and the door falls just that little bit further.

“Go!”

Hands on her arms and torso drag and push her back but she doesn’t really feel it, Catra is lost from sight as they move her body further from the entrance. Her mind however, stays in that doorway with the echo of her own screams in her ears. There’s water running down her face, streaking through dust and grime but she doesn’t feel that either. Everything is too distanced and it’s bad, it’s so bad. She’ll get everyone killed instead of the one. The thought doesn’t crush her, in some weird way it sounds good - as much as her brain can’t put ‘Catra’ and ‘killed’ in the same thought, she knows the reality of the situation all too well, she’s seen it happen too many times. She’s already lost Catra to the swarm, the woman she’s loved her whole life. The love she’s never going to get to have, the love she never even admitted. What’s the point of trying to survive after that?

It takes Glimmer’s pained pleading in her ear for her to remember how to move - she might want to surrender right now, just let the infected take her as well, but Bow and Glimmer don’t deserve that. They don’t deserve to lose two friends in a day rather than just one. It’s the only reason she turns around and huddles close to Glimmer’s side. Every step threatens to crumble her legs from the heaviness she feels. She can’t breathe fast enough through the grief and adrenaline and fear and heartbreak and everything else. 

She doesn’t recognise any of the tunnels through her tears despite definitely having been in them before, the ground is barely visible below her. She walks in a haze of her own making, not bothering to wipe her face. She’s carrying very little of Glimmer’s weight but Bow doesn’t say anything. The drag of infected feet rings through the network of paths; they’re close. And as much as the thought pains her, she’s glad Catra was right. If she hadn’t stayed, they’d all be dead. At least Catra didn’t di- didn't...lose for nothing. She grits her teeth to stop sobs breaking through, the quieter they are, the easier they’ll lose them. 

There’s a familiar beep and low hiss as a heavy steel bunker door slides up. Bow punches the button once they’re inside and they collapse against the metal once it’s down, waiting for some rebels to find them. She pushes her hands roughly against her face, palm cutting into the slices on her jaw. She doesn’t care, doesn’t feel it through the crushing in her chest. She can’t breathe. _She can’t fucking breathe_. Every rush of stale air burns like there’s not enough oxygen. 

There’s a grip on her arms, gently pulling her hands away, and she gains no comfort from it.  
“Adora, please just breathe. For us, please,” Glimmer begs as she wraps her arms around as much of her body as she can. She tries, she really does. Everything feels like it’s getting smaller, the walls in the room, the clothes on her body. The arms around her lift when she pushes them away, shaking violently.  
It takes a few minutes for the blackness crawling at the edges of her vision to reside. Her breathing slows but the steady stream of tears doesn’t. She doesn’t wince as her head thumps back against dense metal. Something lands in her lap: Catra’s bag. She takes out her gun, one of them anyway. She unloads it and lets it sit on her legs, bag at her feet. 

“Adora, Catra saved us. She had to,” Bow tries to comfort but he’s crying too. He’s trying to hide it for her. It makes her feel so much worse, and it’s not even his fault. It just makes everything so much more real.  
She gives a watery stare to a black-green crack that stretches throughout the stone overhead. “I never even got to tell her.”  
“Tell her what?” Glimmer asks like she doesn’t already know. 

She drags the gaze over to them, they’re both looking at her with such soft expressions that it breaks her heart all over again. She opens her mouth to answer but nothing comes out. She clutches the bag to her chest and tears spill over again, water sinks slowly into the fabric. She screams her dry throat raw once more as they wait for the rebels to find them.

By the time soldiers reach them she’s silent, makes no sound as they test them for the infection and escort them back to their bunks. She keeps waiting for someone to ask where Catra is, what happened to her, but the question never comes. They already know. She feels the raggedy pain leave her chest to make room for numbness as she stares at Catra’s empty bunk above her. She feels no shame cradling an empty pistol to her chest, bag gone because the Rebellion needed the supplies inside it. She doesn’t cry for Catra again. No one but her deserves her tears anyway, she keeps them buried and building in her eyes. Everyone’s lost someone in this war, she supposes she’s lucky she hasn’t lost anyone else. She should be so fucking grateful she even had Catra for as long as she did, that she was able to keep her only link she had to the Before. But that’s gone now. It’s gone. Catra’s...gone. She's de- 

It never really seems to sink in.

* * *

**Three Years Later**

They have a cure. An actual working cure for the infection. In some ways she can’t believe it, even if she oversaw every single test and experiment. Everyone they've managed to capture over the past few weeks is recovering, coming back to reality with relative ease. The cured remember every moment of agony and numbness and everything in between. 

Adora doesn’t blame them for not sleeping the first few days, because she doesn’t either. Spinnerella thanks her for staying close by when Netossa needs to sleep in a bed rather than a chair. She excuses her obsessive behaviour by saying that they still need to monitor the cure’s progression. It’s not wrong. It’s just not the only reason. And no one needs to know how incredibly selfish her actions actually are.

She’s watched reunions with deep-seated heartache. Rescue parties haven’t started yet, and every moment between then and now makes Adora want to cry and scream in equal measure. She’s just so fucking close to getting her back. 

Not a moment has passed that she hasn’t thought of Catra, it’s become a fact of her existence that she gave up fighting a long time ago. She gave up the day she realised the scars on her jaw were never going to leave, when she knew she’d never be free of the sick permanent reminder of the moment everything truly and utterly went to shit. In some ways she’s thankful for the mark, it feels like a gift from her.

 _‘Pretty shitty gift,’_ she knows Catra would say if she were here.  
She does that a lot; thinks of things Catra would’ve said. It makes her both more and less lonely. She’s never told anybody; there’s no need to worry them any more than she already does. She knows the looks her friends and colleagues and soldiers give her when they see the pistol on her belt. _“There’s no ammunition for that model anymore,”_ the weapons suppliers had told her eventually a year or so ago before she was going to go out into the field. She didn’t care, simply hooked another gun into her belt on the other side. It’s not like she ever fired it anyway. 

Catra’s memory is the only thing that’s kept her going this long. It was only a few months after she was lost that Adora had started climbing the ranks of the military side of the compound, alongside Glimmer and Bow. She took to the soldier lifestyle scarily easy, her friends are surprised at first. Catra wouldn't have been; she'd grown up in that orphanage too. But the strict timetable has kept her from drowning in her own despair. It gave her a purpose. 

She became a general after her first year, and with the new rank came new information. She’d been shown the Brightmoon labs that ran under the compound and found out that they were developing a cure, and that was it. She’d become obsessed. She worked as hard as she could in her training till she became a commander. And as time and energy consuming as her position was, she spent the rest of her time in the labs waiting for updates on the medicine. It wasn’t healthy. She didn’t care. Why shouldn’t she want to know how the cure’s coming along? 

They find a cure, they save the world. At least that’s how it started. Everyone has lost so much to the infection, everyone benefits from a cure. But she didn’t see any other officers down there everyday without fail. Her friends had questioned her on it when they found out. She gave a vague answer because she didn’t actually know why.  
That was a fucking lie. Of course she knew, it just took her a while to figure it out: they find a cure, she can save Catra. 

A lot of the time she forgets other people have lost people too, and sometimes she just doesn’t care. She just wants Catra, alive and back in her life. It’s the most selfish thing she’s ever wanted. As soon as she realised that was in fact the reason for her spending hours waiting in a stone tunnel for fruitless results she’d been so horrified with herself that she didn’t go down there for a week. But there's something she's learned about obsession; it’s destructive. The cure is Adora’s last hope and she’s since figured out that hope and obsession and desperation is the most violent cocktail of emotions. 

It drives her down to that same lab everyday demanding any changes - progress or regression. The longer it went on, the colder and harder she got. Everything she felt channeled into her hope for a cure. She’s a fucking hypocrite for all the times she’d questioned Bow’s unshakable optimism because she feels it herself now, at least in part. All the fearful warnings about how the cure might not ever be made fell on unhearing ears. 

In the end the last part hadn’t mattered and the finished cure has bloomed that hope anew, saved it from her own destructive determination. It’s rejuvenated every good thing in her like a dying candle being given oxygen again. She needs to find Catra, she needs her back in her life; needs to remember how to be happy again. Catra won’t fix everything, she’s not expecting her to, but she’ll bring back the person Adora used to be. She’ll flush out the Adora from her childhood, breathe life back into the skeleton of a person she is now. 

They told her they were getting close a week before the first successful test and she hasn’t slept since, watching the curing process her every waking moment. No one knew how to drag her away - she simply didn’t let them. She outranked pretty much everyone else anyway. Food was always brought to her and she ate and drank only half-aware, it was probably the only reason she was still able to stand. 

First trials were done via needle and it just ended up with one more infected to house. That day she’d driven her squadrons maybe a little bit too hard in her own frustration. Glimmer confronted her about it afterwards in the safety of Adora’s commander's room, and everything tumbled out in a river. It was the closest she’s come to crying since _that_ night. She’s unreasonably hurt that Glimmer is shocked for a moment; she wasn’t expecting her to still want to save her. And it is always _‘her’_ not ‘Catra’. 

Everyone knows how she changed the night she lost her best friend, how she’d hardened into a soldier, consumed by her own desperate drive. If they think she’ll stop now when she’s so close they’re fucking fools. Maybe it’ll kill her, doesn’t matter, she’s felt as good as dead every second since the metal door slid shut behind her and Catra was truly and undeniably lost. Lost, not killed. Glimmer had only brought up the possibility that Catra has died - properly died, not been infected - once. She hadn’t made the mistake again. She couldn’t let herself think like that, because then what would she have left? Grief and a hole torn through her center where her best friend - and the love of her life - should be.

But unlike Adora, Glimmer hasn’t held onto hope for a cure like it’s the only way she can live. She’s moved on, solely thinking of those she’s lost as dead to keep herself sane. But Glimmer also knows that she can’t, she just can’t move on from the person she’s loved in every single way for as long as she can remember. As soon as Adora lets slip how close they are to a cure, Glimmer promises to help her. They go down to the labs together the next day to convince them to develop the cure into a distanced projectile - it wasn’t like the scientists could say no to two commanders and a good idea. The cure was loaded into special miniature bullet capsules in repurposed old guns they’d long since lost the right ammunition for. They try to give the two of them the credit for the idea but she doesn’t want it, she just wants this _done_.

And so the working cure is being sent out into the world, troops of soldiers with guns full of medicine and trucks to haul the bodies back. If anyone is surprised that Adora adamantly demands she be on every team heading out of the compound, that’s on them. If she doesn’t go she’ll be crushed by ‘what ifs’. What if they miss Catra out there? What if she’s trapped or hurt or dying and Adora’s not there to save her? What if - She doesn’t stop moving, because as soon as she stops she’ll crumble under her own fears, she’ll be crushed by it. And the Rebellion needs her alive, needs her to have some fucking use. So she goes. Every single time.

And no one talks about why the commander has bags dark as bruises under her eyes, why said eyes are bloodshot, why her teeth are gritted so tightly the scars on her jaw ache. Catra’s name is never mentioned, even by the people who knew her, and over the years, that already small number of people has dwindled into single digits. No one talked about her when she was lost and they still don’t. She knows she screams her name in her sleep but ‘Catra’ hasn’t been mentioned for years by anyone but Adora herself. Just as it was with Glimmer a week or so ago, it’s always just _her_ ; the soldiers are too scared of ice-blue eyes that promise to tear them apart. And as much as it hurts, feels like maybe Catra’s been forgotten, it’s much better than the alternative. She can’t imagine hearing her name while she’s not alive and here in her arms. Because she could be, finally, after all this time she _could_ be.

Every head of blood-matted curly dark hair ends up with one of Adora’s bullets buried in their flesh. Everyone knows why. No one says anything. She’d be grateful if the weight constantly pressing down on her lungs didn’t get heavier with every wrong body. 

Five fucking rescue missions, fifty people overall since the truck beds can only carry a few at a time. The camp grows with the numbers quickly, humans taking back infected land. There’s no side effects of the cure they’ve found so far, no reversions, no infected-typical violence, even if the cured are slightly spacey. The mind has a way of removing the worst memories as a means of protection, they quickly learn, the cured forgetting a lot of their most violent experiences within a few days. Adora wishes she could say the same.

The only sleep she gets is after passing out in a chair in the labs, a few hours at a time. The one time she actively tries to sleep she sees _that_ night in startlingly vivid detail and wakes up drenched in sweat, scars aching and with Catra’s name on her lips. She doesn’t try again. 

There’s no reason for her to expect rescue missions numbers six, seven and eight to be any different except for her own undying, relentless hope. Her own need and selfish desire. Every day the infected packs in the closest cities and towns are whittled down, the squadrons capturing and curing the stragglers at the edges. They don’t engage with swarms if they spot them, still turning and running. And as much as she might be craving a fight for an outlet, she’s too tired for it to work how she wants it to. She’ll just get herself killed. She’ll find her eventually, it’s only a matter of time. Not once does she consider that Catra is dead. She doesn’t believe it for a second. She can’t, not even now.

 _“Come on Adora, you’ve never given up on anything in your life,”_ Catra had said many times to her growing up, usually in an attempt to rile her. And as much as the memory remains bittersweet, she reminds herself of it every time she comes back without her. She carves the words into her bedframe after mission nine.

It’s been months. The black around her eyes and shadows under her cheek bones have become as permanently fixed to her face as the scars. Sleep still evades her, only coming a few hours at a time every few days, armed with bloody nightmares or restlessness. She eats, but only because it’s able to distract her for a few minutes. When she’s not in the field or attending to her commander duties, she’s training. She replaces the ache in her chest with the burn of fatigue. Glimmer and Bow have never been so concerned for her and it makes everything so much worse because she _knows_ how bad this is, she just can’t stop. 

Her greatest hope comes on the day she’s allowed to go through the tunnels herself, arriving back in what’s left of that shack on the edge of a decaying town. She falls to her knees when she sees the blown open doorway. Catra’s blood is there on the floor in front of her and her other gun sits shattered next to a wall. But her body isn’t here. And if her body isn’t here that means she’s not dead - just infected. The thought used to be just as painful, if not more so. The dead wouldn’t come running and clawing at your face trying to drag you down too, but now she’s thankful. Oh so thankful because she has some concrete proof for her hope to latch onto like a leech. She thinks she hears Catra’s voice telling her to come find her, but for all she knows it’s just the wind whistling along the knife-point edges of broken glass. 

They’ve taken back all the smaller towns close to the city, expanding the base and increasing resource distribution tenfold. And as much as that should dampen her spirits even further considering Catra was lost in a small town on the outskirts, it does nothing of the sort. They grew up in a city together and Catra was always more attached to it than she let on, she even applied to go to the university there before the outbreak. Of course she probably won’t be there for any sentimental reason; the infected gravitated towards cities because of all the noise that came from them, even when abandoned. 

Every mission into the city leads them further and further inwards and the population of infected increases instead of thinning like they naively hoped it might. It’s risky but the adrenaline rush is welcome. Adora becomes a strange pendulum of careless and careful, throwing herself bodily into any and all situations and coming back with more injuries than anyone else, but being careful enough to keep everyone else safe. She tells herself it’s because she’s the leader, a commander for fucks sake, of course she wants to keep her team safe. It takes Glimmer and Bow a while to pry out her deep-seated guilt and shame and regret; she couldn’t save Catra so she’ll save everyone else. She’s not allowed to leave the heavily fortified Brightmoon compound for a week. 

Scout and Rescue Mission #46 promises nothing for her but another chance of hoping. The hope hasn’t died, she doesn’t think it could at this point, it’s just polluted with her doubts and fears. Those stupid fucking ‘what ifs’ that have taken to screaming a deafening chorus in her head like banshees. The squadron leaves early morning with the sunrise, trucks rolling slowly over broken country roads they haven’t gotten round to thinking about fixing yet. The gravelly dirt track morphs to smoother tarmac as they enter the cover of the high rising buildings. She’s surprised how many are still standing - crumbling and overrun with vines, but standing - as they pass by. The limited sunlight scatters along the ground, even in the shadows where walls have decayed. They’ve cleared out most of this quadrant and so are able to walk in the road side-long with the vehicles instead of huddled within them. They still keep their guns drawn. 

For something she’s been waiting over three years for, the actuality of the moment is somewhat underwhelming. There’s uneven grey tarmac under her scrappy army boots, the roots of growing trees breaking it up. Ancient cars, metal dusty and ruptured and pried apart for supplies, line the street, the glass that used to be there long since smashed and pulverized under foot. Nothing burns in the streets, everything that might’ve caught fire would’ve done so a long time ago. Brick dust sticks to her legs and the rubber tyres that follow along behind her, but it doesn’t fly high enough to disrupt her vision with such low wind. 

They’ve already gotten two infected in the trucks, sedated with the cure and in the coma that comes with the beginning of the process, when she sees it. A lonely head of frizzy dark hair tangled with blood and dust peaking over the bonnet of a car only a few meters down a side road that's bathed in grey and peach light. She has no reason to hope more than she already does, but her heart still leaps into her throat, as always. She alerts the others but goes alone, creeping closer till there’s a better opening. The opportunity arises soon enough and she takes the shot easily, the capsule passing through a shredded red tank top and implanting in the stomach of her victim as they fall to the ground.

She focuses on her surroundings and the softness of her steps as she moves closer. She won’t be caught out now, but there’s no one (nothing) else there. She doesn’t risk a look at the infected’s face when she walks to them, not yet. Grey blood dyes red in the wound as the cure seeps into the bloodstream and air stutters into the infected’s lungs. She almost chokes when she recognises the outfit. It’s still the exact same; she’s wearing the jacket Adora gave her for her nineteenth birthday and the combat boots she’d run home to show her as soon as she bought them. She flicks the hair from the infected’s face with the end of her gun, fingers far from the trigger. For a moment the reality doesn’t register and she just stares at the peaceful freckled face below her. She’s stained in years worth of grime and grit and blood and remnants of organs that aren’t hers, but it’s Catra. She’s here and she’s not going to leave again.

Her hand shakes as she reaches it out and the first touch of her fingertips against Catra’s skin is like her head is breaking the water’s surface after drowning. A cracked sob escapes before she can help it. Water drips onto Catra’s face and she knows she’s crying for the first time in three years; she doesn’t care. The trucks roll by and she doesn’t move, doesn’t hear anything. The gun gets left on broken tarmac and she reaches into her jacket pocket for a scrap of fabric. She’s remarkably gentle - gentler than she’s been since she lost her - as she wipes Catra’s face clean, aided by Adora’s own tears. Catra won’t wake, not for a few days. She feels like she’s waited too long for this moment, she hates having to wait any longer to see her eyes again, her smile again. She hates not having a choice. 

It’s been longer than she thought by the time she gets a reprieve from her own head, before she can breathe through the sobs, the trucks far away now. She clips the gun back onto her belt before getting her arms around Catra.  
_‘This isn't the first time you’ve held her like this,’_ dimly registers in her head. It's true; she carried Catra like this off the football field when she broke her ankle at twelve years old. Still, it feels like the first and only time she's ever done it.

She’s more surprised than she ought to be when she turns and sees a soldier waiting for her at the end of the road where she’d turned off. The soldier has the barrel of their gun pointed at her, such is protocol, but they lower it quickly. They offer to help carry Catra back to the trucks but Adora can’t even comprehend the idea of letting Catra leave her arms. She glares at them with tear-stained eyes and they move aside, following several steps back. She clutches Catra tighter, and the dried blood on her body surely must be flaking off and staining Adora’s grey-blue military uniform by now. 

The journey to catch up with the vehicles is the longest one of Adora’s life. She only takes her eyes off Catra’s sleep-slackened face to make sure she’s not going to trip on the uneven ground. The trucks slow to a stop for her and she knows soldiers stare, can feel the surprised looks crawling up her spine. She thinks many of them doubted she _could_ cry. She doesn't bother to grace them with the stone-cold glare she’s perfected, because as much as she’s come to care for the people under her command, they’re not worth it. Catra makes her selfish, she always has.

She clambers into the truck bed, careful not to jostle the body in her arms too much. She leans back against the wall separating the seating and holding areas, pulling Catra tight against her chest. Catra’s breath rattles in her throat and Adora winces at the weak sound, still, at least it means she’s alive. There’s blood and dust and all manner of horrible things in Catra’s hair but Adora still presses into it. She’s not above saying she smells disgusting - all infected do - but underneath it she still smells like _her_. A pitiful sob and another flurry of tears gets lost in brown curls. 

She doesn’t notice when Bow comes to the truck, him and another soldier lifting another body into the back. The padded metal rocks slightly underneath her and there’s a human warmth, warmth she still doesn’t feel from the body she’s holding, against her ankle.  
“You got her.” He sounds as disbelieving as she feels.  
She doesn’t respond, doesn’t think she can. It’s funny that here and now of all places she’s able to sleep peacefully. She wakes back in the compound in her own bed. 

Everything is fuzzy for a total of five seconds, then she’s dragging on her cargo trousers and boots and grabbing the first weapon she can, not bothering to change out of her tank top she’d been put in and running to the curing wing of the lab. She realises she hasn’t even put her hair up, it doesn’t matter. (There would still be dust in it even with a ponytail.)

When she bursts through doors there’s clamouring for all of four seconds before it falls deadly silent, she looks like a madwoman. She knows that. Might as well go the whole way. She focuses a glare on a scientist - Juliet she thinks her name is - and the woman merely points in a direction. 

Adora’s grateful of the glass in the curing cells, and finds Catra easily after the initial direction. She’s still asleep and it makes her heavy a relieved sigh.  
_‘I’m never leaving you again.’_

They won’t let her in, no matter how much she shouts at them, not even commanding officers get to enter curing cells for three days after the subject is brought in. Adora thinks it’s fucking bullshit, because it is. She's already held her - finally after all this time held her - if there was any risk, she’d be infected already. She knows they’re just scared that the cure isn’t as 100% effective as they hope it is. She doesn’t care, let her be infected, just so long as she gets to touch her again. 

In the end they bring her a chair; it’s cold metal and uncomfortable but she doesn’t care. She waits there, numbness threatening, for hours. But a look at Catra’s face and it’s gone, replaced by warmth that’s managed to deceive her for years. She craves the moment Catra’s eyes open like water in the desert, feels like she needs it if she has any hope of properly living again. She’s in a foreign limbo. Catra’s not gone, not anymore, but she’s not _here_ either. She’s _there_. She’s right there and Adora can’t do anything about it.

She considers breaking the glass or ripping the door of it’s hinges but she can’t do either, the cells being specially designed and all. She hadn’t realised how long she actually slept the day they brought Catra back, a full twenty-four hours after however long it’s been of shit sleep. Catra’s not even awake yet and she’s already making her better. Still, Adora doesn’t think she’s ever slept that long in her life and it’s mildly shocking. But it means there’s only two days before she can meet her again, touch her again, see her again without barriers. Until then she knows that none of this is going to feel real. 

She doesn’t leave - she said she wouldn’t, she promised. She falls into a new pattern, spending days wandering the lab aimlessly, except this time she has a place to return to. She never spends more than an hour away from Catra before her heart demands she return and her body drags her back. She never fights the urge. She’s become well acquainted with the chair they gave her, as well as every crack and smudge on the glass in Catra's cell wall. She assumes Glimmer must be handling her duties on the surface and she’ll thank her for it later. If anyone thinks they can get her to leave this lab they might very well end up with a tranquilizer in their necks. 

It’s the longest two days of her life.

“You can go in now.”  
She doesn’t wait for the sentence to finish before snatching the keys from the assistant’s hand. Her body is buzzing with nervous energy and her legs threaten to collapse under her as she opens the door. It slams shut all too loudly behind her and everything suddenly seems too quiet. She doesn't mean to rush forward, but she does it all the same. The first audible breath from Catra’s lips, stronger than it had been before, soothes her fears in a way she knows nothing else will. 

She crawls carefully onto the bed, crushing herself into whatever space is left. The first touch of skin makes tears start flowing freely once again and she idly muses whether this will continue when Catra actually wakes up. She finds she wouldn’t care, simply because it would mean that Catra is awake and alive enough to touch her in kind. Catra’s not wearing her own clothes, dressed in a long white dress-shirt thing that she almost laughs at just because Catra will absolutely hate it when she wakes up. The pristine whiteness of the clothes is a shining contrast to the dark muddiness of her hair, skin and bandages. Her clothes are folded and clean(er) on a chair in the corner, she considers getting Catra’s jacket to lay over her as a way of comfort. She doesn’t, she adds it to an accumulating list of things she’ll do later: thank Glimmer, check Catra’s wounds, clean her up, find her some more clothes. 

None of it matters as much as the returning pulse under her fingertips, she needs more of it, it’s the best painkiller she’s ever known. She lies her head on Catra’s chest, revelling in the weak thunder of her heartbeat as it seeps into her ears.  
“Catra? Catra baby I’m here. I’m never going to leave you again.” She cries again as she voices the promise out loud, cementing it in truth, knowing she won’t get a response.

She does leave the room, but it’s only to go to the closest bathroom and get some essentials, then she’s back on the bed, holding Catra to her chest. She brushes her hair free of as much years-old dirt and blood as she can but water really will be needed to salvage it. She cleans as much grime off her arms and legs as possible given what little she has before settling back down with her again, addicted to her heartbeat. 

She speaks to her, tells her stories that she knows Catra won’t care about when she wakes up. Sometimes she gets angry at her, she feels ridiculous and guilty for shouting at an unconscious body but she hasn’t let herself feel real emotion in so long. It’s overwhelming finally having to face all the hurt Catra’s sacrifice has caused her, especially when it’s drowned out by how much she loves her for letting her and their friends live, and how happy she is that she’s back. She falls into a deep dreamless sleep, lulled by the warmth steadily returning back to Catra’s body. 

It’s the second day Adora wakes up early in Catra’s cell, curled around her. She’s brought food, and it’s left outside the door considering Adora has one of two keys and she has yet to move. But she does eventually, going to the bathroom and collecting the food when she reenters. She eats in lonely silence, mumbling things she ought to do under her breath. Catra started making noise yesterday and she’s proud of herself for not crying when the first hum escaped her throat. She’s missed her voice so much that even small, distinctly _human_ , growls that come with her waking sleep cut deep with longing.

She sets the plate down immediately when sound almost like a word spills from not-so-immobile lips. She pulls Catra into her lap, arms around her back, and something tenses in her hands. She pushes hair back from Catra's face, breath hitching at the first sign of movement. Nothing else happens for a few minutes and she begins to think her desperation and hope has manifested itself in imagined sensations. (She honestly wouldn't put it past herself at this point.) But then Catra’s fingertips twitch and all the air leaves Adora’s body. 

It takes three hours, every tortuous minute of it Adora kept her in her arms. It’s mid-morning on the fifth day when Catra’s eyes flutter open. She starts coughing and Adora doesn’t hear her own gasp when blue-gold eyes meet hers. It shocks her entire body still, and her mind goes blank. More minutes pass, Catra blinking slowly as if she's waking from a pleasant dream. When she can finally find it in herself to move again, she's back to brushing the hair from Catra' face. Catra hums a few times, body still limp but gaining tension as it reanimates properly. 

Catra's head falls against her chest and the confusion fades from her eyes, they stay open this time and a smile spreads across her face.  
“Hey Adora.”

Catra doesn’t wince or even move at all when teardrops land on her face. She reaches up to wipe them away, breathing heavily like she might cry as well. She wants to crush Catra into her chest but she’s too wary of the gashes that are scattered along her sides. Catra’s eyes unfocus again for a moment and she swallows, Adora knows that look, she’s seen it enough; Catra’s remembering. She looks scared, as scared as she did in the moments before she lost her when she comes back. 

“I love you too,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.  
It’s like those words have been trapped in her throat her whole life waiting for this moment. The fear leaves quickly and Catra stares up at her, dumbstruck and surprised for a good minute. She blinks a couple times and closes her mouth before laughing, quiet and disbelieving and raspy...but happy. Undeniable happiness that makes Adora bloodstream burn with light. Catra takes her head off her chest, eyes glistening with tears she can’t seem to shed. A dry, cracked hand comes to rest on Adora’s face and she can’t help but lean into it, fighting off tears again. 

“If my mouth didn’t taste like a tailpipe I would kiss you right now.” It sounds like she meant for it to be playful but the disappointment is obvious. She considers calling Catra an idiot, as if something as small as that would stop her from wanting to kiss her. She’s wanted it every moment of everyday since they were preteens. Instead all she says is, “I don’t care.”

Catra’s beaming smile is worth losing sight of as it gets pressed into Adora’s lips. She forces her hands to stay flat when they beg to grip onto the woman in her arms. But she knows she has to remain gentle considering the wounds Catra is still sporting, but it’s hard, so very hard to do so. Catra just holds them together until she can’t anymore. Their foreheads lie on one another's and Catra’s breath has never felt stronger.  
Adora licks her lips and something like soot and sand explodes on her tongue, “You’re right, that’s nasty.”  
Catra laughs with her, “You’re such an idiot. I told you.”  
“Guess you’re going to have to tell me again.”

Even if a horde started storming the compound at this very moment, she doubts it would’ve stopped her from kissing Catra. She gets lost in the relief and love and _‘finally’_. There’s still a world-wide apocalypse happening on the surface, but not for the first time since they were teenagers in school, Adora realises she doesn’t care about anything but Catra. No, all that matters is the body warm and alive in her arms and the way Catra’s clinging onto her, laughing breathlessly into her mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops, the second time I temporarily kill off Catra. It’s about the hurt/comfort.  
> Whenever Catra doesn’t have claws she needs to dual wield weapons, sorry I don’t make the rules.  
> (Did I intend for the assistant who ended up getting infected to be Kyle? You decide.)  
> (And yes, I'm British, mock my spelling I don't give a shit.)
> 
> [My tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tillykitty10) if you wanna talk to my anxious ass about She-Ra.


End file.
